Written by Philip Hodges<\/p>\n
Depending on what political party you identify with, you\u2019ll either love <\/em>WikiLeaks or abhor <\/em>them. And people\u2019s opinions of the organization changes depending on which political leaders are getting exposed. If the Bush administration is getting exposed, then liberals champion the group and whistleblowers in general, and conservatives decry the group as a terrorist organization and label the whistleblowers \u201ctraitors.\u201d<\/p>\n But if WikiLeaks exposes the Obama administration, or the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, it\u2019s the other way around. All of a sudden the liberals who had previously championed the group, hate <\/em>the group and want Assange \u201cbrought to justice\u201d for crimes against humanity. And predictably, conservatives cheer his cause.<\/p>\n A lot of people don\u2019t seem to understand that Assange doesn\u2019t identify with any major U.S. political party. He\u2019s not American. He\u2019s an outsider. His goal has always been to expose top-level corruption, regardless of which countries or political parties are involved. And he\u2019s had to pay a price for that.<\/p>\n As a publishing organization, they don\u2019t hire hackers to steal other people\u2019s computer documents and emails. WikiLeaks is a place for whistleblowers. They publish only what they\u2019re given.<\/p>\n In other words, if someone inside the Trump campaign wanted to expose the campaign\u2019s corruption and send a ton of emails to WikiLeaks, they would have published it. The only reason WikiLeaks published Podesta\u2019s emails and the DNC emails was that someone felt the need to blow the whistle anonymously. So far, no one\u2019s felt the need to do the same thing with the RNC or the Trump campaign. That doesn\u2019t mean that Julian Assange must be pro-Trump. It just means that no one\u2019s come forward seeking to out Trump.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to keep in mind that if our media networks truly were \u201cfair and balanced\u201d and objective and unbiased, there would be no need for a group like WikiLeaks.<\/p>\n TRENDING ON EAGLE RISING<\/strong><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a statement on the U.S. election released by Julian Assange:<\/p>\n In recent months, WikiLeaks and I personally have come under enormous pressure to stop publishing what the Clinton campaign says about itself to itself. That pressure has come from the campaign\u2019s allies, including the Obama administration, and from liberals who are anxious about who will be elected US President.<\/em><\/p>\n On the eve of the election, it is important to restate why we have published what we have.<\/em><\/p>\n The right to receive and impart true information is the guiding principle of WikiLeaks \u2013 an organization that has a staff and organizational mission far beyond myself. Our organization defends the public\u2019s right to be informed.<\/em><\/p>\n This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election, the real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work.<\/em><\/p>\n The US public has thoroughly engaged with WikiLeaks\u2019 election related publications which number more than one hundred thousand documents. Millions of Americans have pored over the leaks and passed on their citations to each other and to us. It is an open model of journalism that gatekeepers are uncomfortable with, but which is perfectly harmonious with the First Amendment.<\/em><\/p>\n We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical importance and which has not been published elsewhere. When we have material that fulfills this criteria, we publish. We had information that fit our editorial criteria which related to the Sanders and Clinton campaign (DNC Leaks) and the Clinton political campaign and Foundation (Podesta Emails). No-one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.<\/em><\/p>\n At the same time, we cannot publish what we do not have. To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump\u2019s campaign, or Jill Stein\u2019s campaign, or Gary Johnson\u2019s campaign or any of the other candidates that fufills our stated editorial criteria. As a result of publishing Clinton\u2019s cables and indexing her emails we are seen as domain experts on Clinton archives. So it is natural that Clinton sources come to us.<\/em><\/p>\n We publish as fast as our resources will allow and as fast as the public can absorb it.<\/em><\/p>\n That is our commitment to ourselves, to our sources, and to the public.<\/em><\/p>\n This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election. The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers. I spoke at the launch of the campaign for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, because her platform addresses the need to protect them. This is an issue that is close to my heart because of the Obama administration\u2019s inhuman and degrading treatment of one of our alleged sources, Chelsea Manning. But WikiLeaks publications are not an attempt to get Jill Stein elected or to take revenge over Ms Manning\u2019s treatment either.<\/em><\/p>\n Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public\u2019s right to know.<\/em><\/p>\n This is after all what happened when the New York Times withheld evidence of illegal mass surveillance of the US population for a year until after the 2004 election, denying the public a critical understanding of the incumbent president George W Bush, which probably secured his reelection. The current editor of the New York Times has distanced himself from that decision and rightly so.<\/em><\/p>\n The US public defends free speech more passionately, but the First Amendment only truly lives through its repeated exercise. The First Amendment explicitly prevents the executive from attempting to restrict anyone\u2019s ability to speak and publish freely. The First Amendment does not privilege old media, with its corporate advertisers and dependencies on incumbent power factions, over WikiLeaks\u2019 model of scientific journalism or an individual\u2019s decision to inform their friends on social media. The First Amendment unapologetically nurtures the democratization of knowledge. With the Internet, it has reached its full potential.<\/em><\/p>\n Yet, some weeks ago, in a tactic reminiscent of Senator McCarthy and the red scare, Wikileaks, Green Party candidate Stein, Glenn Greenwald and Clinton\u2019s main opponent were painted with a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia. The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications\u2014because none exists.<\/em><\/p>\n In the end, those who have attempted to malign our groundbreaking work over the past four months seek to inhibit public understanding perhaps because it is embarrassing to them \u2013 a reason for censorship the First Amendment cannot tolerate. Only unsuccessfully do they try to claim that our publications are inaccurate.<\/em><\/p>\n WikiLeaks\u2019 decade-long pristine record for authentication remains. Our key publications this round have even been proven through the cryptographic signatures of the companies they passed through, such as Google. It is not every day you can mathematically prove that your publications are perfect but this day is one of them.<\/em><\/p>\n We have endured intense criticism, primarily from Clinton supporters, for our publications. Many long-term supporters have been frustrated because we have not addressed this criticism in a systematic way or responded to a number of false narratives about Wikileaks\u2019 motivation or sources. Ultimately, however, if WL reacted to every false claim, we would have to divert resources from our primary work.<\/em><\/p>\n WikiLeaks, like all publishers, is ultimately accountable to its funders. Those funders are you. Our resources are entirely made up of contributions from the public and our book sales. This allows us to be principled, independent and free in a way no other influential media organization is. But it also means that we do not have the resources of CNN, MSNBC or the Clinton campaign to constantly rebuff criticism.<\/em><\/p>\n Yet if the press obeys considerations above informing the public, we are no longer talking about a free press, and we are no longer talking about an informed public.<\/em><\/p>\n Wikileaks remains committed to publishing information that informs the public, even if many, especially those in power, would prefer not to see it. WikiLeaks must publish. It must publish and be damned.<\/em><\/p>\n The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by EagleRising.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Philip Hodges Depending on what political party you identify with, you\u2019ll either love WikiLeaks or abhor them. And people\u2019s opinions of the organization changes depending on which political leaders are getting exposed. If the Bush administration is getting exposed, then liberals champion the group and whistleblowers in general, and conservatives decry the group […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":46052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[10064,10057,10056],"class_list":["post-96525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-assange-en","tag-hillary-clinton-en","tag-wikileaks-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n